 |
Diamonds Throughout History
by Adala Fendham
http://www.autodiamonds.com
The diamonds we like to give or receive have a very long
history - even the youngest of them is probably over one
billion years old! This is because it is not easy to make a
diamond -they are formed deep within the earth at
temperatures of over two thousand degrees Fahrenheit and
at an unimaginably high pressure.
Diamonds come up ninety miles to the earth's surface
through volcanic eruptions. Since such deep volcanoes
are rare, diamonds are exceedingly precious. Diamonds
are the more valuable cousin of coal, which is also
made of carbon but which has not been subjected to the
extreme conditions that a diamond has.
Diamond gathering by humans started early in our history
and hundreds of years before Christ diamonds were being
used as decoration in India. Besides being beautiful,
diamonds are also amazingly hard - the name comes from the
Greek meaning impossible to tame - and some cultures have
made more use of this second characteristic. The Ancient
Chinese, for example, used diamonds to engrave and drill
jade, a gem they found far more attractive than diamond.
For almost a thousand years up to the middle ages in
Europe, diamonds were completely out of fashion. This was
due to the combined effects of trade restrictions between
Europe and diamond-rich India, and the association of
diamonds with non-Christian amulets that meant diamonds had
bad associations in Christian Europe.
But when trade increased in the 14th century, the
popularity of diamonds began to rise. Rather than leaving
the diamonds "raw," as Indians did, the Europeans
preferred to cut their stones. They made them over into
various shapes, and the cuts gave off an increased
sparkle.
The art of diamond cutting has been through many changes
throughout diamond history. The aim of the cutting is to
let the diamond shine most beautifully - to show off what
diamond experts call the fire of the diamond. Their are
many cuts, with names like point, table, rose and Mazarin
cuts. One of the finest patterns was developed by a German
mathematician and diamond lover named Marcel Tolkowsky. He
used his mathematical gifts to calculate the ideal shape to
show a diamond its best.
Even though diamonds are rare, they are now owned by
people from all backgrounds. This was not always the
case. In France, King Louis the Ninth so firmly
believed that diamonds were meant for kings that he
passed a law preventing commoners from owning the gems.
The diamonds used throughout most of human history have
been found in river beds by carefully searching. The fact
that diamonds could be mined was not discovered until late
in the Nineteenth Century - in South Africa in 1870 a
diamond was unearthed miles from any river and the country
very quickly went on to become a world diamond power.
The unit used to measure diamonds is the carats, which
denotes weight. One ounce is equal to one hundred and
forty-seven carats. But diamonds are precious when they
are as small as a single carat, and some are measured in
units below a carat, called a "point." Fifty points is
the equivalent of a half-carat.
Today it's possible to manufacture diamonds in laboratory
conditions, but these man-made items aren't as expensive
and valuable as the real thing. Diamonds that are almost
as old as the earth itself continue to have a cachet that,
seemingly, will never diminish.
Submit An Article
|
|  |
